The Influence of Content Characteristics of Virtual Influencers on Purchase Intention

Virtual influencers are increasingly adapting to meet consumer demands across diverse sectors, including media, entertainment, education, advertising, and distribution. Despite their growing presence, challenges remain, particularly consumer unease with virtual entities and their limited efficacy within certain demographic groups. This study attempted to investigate how the content characteristics of virtual influencers affect consumer purchase intentions. Specifically, the objectives are twofold: first, to identify and analyze key content characteristics employed by virtual influencers in contemporary e-business and customer acquisition strategies, and second, to evaluate the relationships between these characteristics, shopping values, and subsequent purchase intentions. Data collected from 400 consumer surveys were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) through SPSS and R programming. The results indicate that attractiveness, expertise, playfulness, informativeness, and interactivity positively influenced utilitarian shopping value, while authenticity showed no significant effect. In contrast, attractiveness, authenticity, playfulness, and informativeness positively impacted hedonic shopping value, whereas expertise and informativeness did not significantly influence it. Importantly, both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values demonstrated strong positive effects on consumers' purchase intentions. The results offer important insights into the use of virtual influencers, emphasizing key elements that enhance consumer engagement and purchasing decisions in the digital marketplace.